Wine Industry Resilience and Strategy Under Crisis: The Case of Sicilian Cooperatives

COVID-19 has prevented the normal functioning of the wine supply chain arising the need to define effective strategies to cross over the crisis. The aim of the study is to analyse the consequences that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the operations of wine cooperatives as well as the managerial strategies implemented by them to cope with such a complex and unique situation. An empirical survey was conducted in Sicily, one of the most important Italian regions for wine production, by involving eight wine cooperatives. Findings reveal that, unlike the resilience of the national and international agri-food sector, the Sicilian wine cooperative system was strongly affected by the negative impacts of the pandemic in terms of wine production and revenue. Structural weaknesses of the sector also linked to the low level of innovation and digitization in the marketing field were the main factors affecting this negative performance.